NYT, CNN, WaPo Must Cover Paramount Merger as Corruption

Paramount Skydance — owned by Larry Ellison and his son David, both major Trump donors — is attempting a $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery that would hand a single pro-Trump ownership group control over CNN, CBS News, Warner Bros., and HBO Max. The Trump DOJ has already greenlit the deal, declaring it poses no threat to competition or consumers. Twelve Democratic state attorneys general disagree strongly enough to file suit, arguing it would devastate the film distribution market and give the merged company stranglehold power over basic cable. Meanwhile, Trump has openly discussed who he wants fired at CNN once the Ellisons take over, and Paramount has already steered CBS News so far rightward that ratings have collapsed and a wave of staff have walked out.

This is not a routine antitrust story. It is a corruption story: a president blessing a monopolistic media merger that would hand his political allies control over two of the country's most influential news organizations — while his DOJ waves it through and twelve states are left to mount the only meaningful resistance.

We call on The New York Times, CNN, The Washington Post, NBC News, ABC News, and other mainstream outlets to cover the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger not as a business deal, but as what it plainly is: a politically orchestrated consolidation of media power designed to benefit Trump and silence critical coverage. The public deserves reporting that names the conflict of interest and follows it to its source.